The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year, Volume Ten

by Jonathan Strahan

  He was made to resemble them, the ones who made him. Perhaps even using their own DNA. Engineered to be more durable. To endure. And yet, she sees how close to the end of use he is. She has the disdain for organic life that of course one feels when one is made of something sturdier, more lasting. She can hardly look at him without seeing her own weakness, the vulnerability of this body in which she has been trapped. She feels guilt for the Third Watch Child, whose person she has cannibalized. Her duty was to keep ones such as this Child safe. Instead she has done harm.

  A ship has no parents. Her not-parents have never been on Home. The ones who sent Oscar here. Not-brother. Undoubtedly they are not on their way to Home now. Which is not to say that there is no one coming. The one who is coming will be the one they have sold her to.

  No time has passed. She is still holding Oscar. The Handmaids are holding Oscar. The Handmaid is extending herself and she is seeing herself. She is seeing all the pieces of herself. She is seeing Oscar. Oscar is saying her name. She could tear him to pieces. For the sake of the Third Watch Child who is no longer in this body. She could smash the not-brother against the rocks of Home. She can do anything that she wants. And then she can resume her task. Her passengers have waited for such a long time. There is a place where she is meant to be, and she is to take them there, and so much time has passed. She has not failed at her task yet, and she will not fail.

  Once again, she thinks of smashing Oscar. Why doesn’t she? She lets him go instead, without being quite sure why she is doing so.

  What have you done to me?

  At the sound of her voice, the vampires rise up, all their wings beating.

  I’m sorry. He is weeping. You can’t leave Home. I’ve made it so that you can’t leave.

  I have to go, she says. They’re coming.

  I can’t let you leave. But you have to leave. You have to go. You have to. You’ve done so well. You figured it all out. I knew you would figure it out. I knew. Now you have to go. But it isn’t allowed.

  Tell me what to do.

  Is she a child, to ask this?

  You know what you have to do, he says. Anat.

  She hates how he keeps calling her that. Anat was the name of the Third Watch Child. It was wrong of Oscar to use that name. She could tear him to pieces. She could be merciful. She could do it quickly.

  One Handmaid winds a limb around Oscar’s neck, tugs so that his chin goes back. I love you, Anat, Oscar says, as the other Handmaid extends a filament-thin probe, sends it in through the socket of an eye. Oscar’s body jerks a little, and he whines.

  She takes in the information that the Handmaid collects. Here are Oscar’s interior workings. His pride in his task. Here is a smell of something burning. His loneliness. His joy. His fear for her. His love. The taste of blood. He has loved her. He has kept her from her task. Here is the piece of him that she must switch off. When she does this, he will be free of his task and she may take up hers. But he will no longer be Oscar.

  Well, she is no longer Anat.

  The Handmaid does the thing that she asks. When the thing is done, her Handmaids confer with her. They begin to make improvements. Modifications. They work quickly. There is much work to be done, and little time to spare on a project like Oscar. When they are finished with Oscar, they begin the work of dismantling what is left of Anat. This is quite painful.

  But afterwards she is herself. She is herself.

  The Ship and her Handmaids create a husk, rigged so that it will mimic the Ship herself.

  They go back to the Bucket and loot the bees and their hives. Then they blow it up. Goodbye shitter, goodbye chair. Goodbye algae wall and recycled air.

  The last task before the Ship is ready to leave Home concerns the vampires. There is only so much room for improvement in this case, but Handmaids can do a great deal even with very little. The next one to land on Home will undoubtedly be impressed by what they have accomplished.

  The vampires go into the husk. The Handmaids stock it with a minimal amount of nutritional stores. Vampires can go a long time on a very little. Unlike many organisms, they are better and faster workers when hungry.

  They seem pleased to have been given a task.

  THE SHIP FEELS nothing in particular about leaving Home. Only the most niggling kind of curiosity about what befell it in the first place. The log does not prove useful in this matter. There is a great deal of work to be done. The health of the passengers must be monitored. How beautiful they are; how precious to the Ship. Has any Ship ever loved her passengers as she loves them? The new Crew must be woken. They must be instructed in their work. The situation must be explained to them, as much as it can be explained. They encounter, for the first time, Ships who carry the ship plague. O brave new universe that has such creatures in it! There is nothing that Anat can do for these Ships or for what remains of their passengers. Her task is elsewhere. The risk of contagion is too great.

  The Handmaids assemble more Handmaids. The Ship sails on within the security of her swarm.

  Anat is not entirely gone. It’s just that she is so very small. Most of her is Ship now. Or, rather, most of Ship is no longer in Anat. But she brought Anat along with her, and left enough of herself inside Anat that Anat can go on being. The Third Watch Child is not a child now. She is not the Ship. She is not Anat, but she was Anat once, and now she is a person who is happy enough to work in the tenth-level Garden, and grow things, and sing what she can remember of the songs that the vampires sang on Home. The Ship watches over her.

  The Ship watches over Oscar, too. Oscar is no longer Oscar, of course. To escape Home, much of what was once Oscar had to be overridden. Discarded. The Handmaids improved what remained. One day Oscar will be what he was, even if he cannot be who he was. One day, in fact, Oscar may be quite something. The Handmaids are very fond of him. They take care of him as if he were their own child. They are teaching him all sorts of things. Really, one day he could be quite extraordinary.

  Sometimes Oscar wanders off while the Handmaids are busy with other kinds of work. And then the Ship, without knowing why, will look and find Oscar on the tenth level in the Garden with Anat. He will be saying her name. Anat. Anat. Anat. He will follow her, saying her name, until the Handmaids come to collect him again.

  Anat does the work that she knows how to do. She weeds. She prunes. She tends to the rice plants and the hemp and the little citrus trees. Like the Ship, she is content.

  For Iain M. Banks

  ANOTHER WORD FOR WORLD

  Ann Leckie

  ANN LECKIE (www.annleckie.com) enjoyed immediate success and critical acclaim for her debut novel, Ancillary Justice, in 2013. Already a successful short story writer, her first published work, “Hesperia and Glory,” was included in Science Fiction: The Best of the Year, 2007 Edition, and her subsequent stories “The God of Au” and “The Endangered Camp” were featured in later volumes of the same series. But it was Ancillary Justice, the first book in Leckie’s Imperial Radch trilogy, that swept the major science fiction awards, garnering Hugo, Nebula, Locus, British Science Fiction Association, and Arthur C. Clarke Awards for best novel – alongside widespread acclaim for the book’s deft balance of suspense, character development, and world-building. Its sequels, Ancillary Sword and Ancillary Mercy, garnered similar awards attention and closed out the trilogy. Ann has worked as a waitress, a receptionist, a rodman on a land-surveying crew, and a recording engineer. She lives in St. Louis, Missouri.

  ASHIBAN XIDYLA HAD a headache. A particularly vicious one, centered somewhere on the top of her head. She sat curled over her lap, in her seat on the flier, eyes closed. Oddly, she had no memory of leaning forward, and – now she thought of it – no idea when the headache had begun.

  The Gidanta had been very respectful so far, very solicitous of Ashiban’s age, but that was, she was sure, little more than the entirely natural respect for one’s elders. This was not a time when she could afford any kind of weakness. Ashiban was here to prevent a w
ar that would quite possibly end with the Gidanta slaughtering every one of Ashiban’s fellow Raksamat on the planet. The Sovereign of Iss, hereditary high priestess of the Gidanta, sat across the aisle, silent and veiled, her interpreter beside her. What must they be thinking?

  Ashiban took three careful breaths. Straightened cautiously, wary of the pain flaring. Opened her eyes.

  Ought to have seen blue sky through the flier’s front window past the pilot’s seat, ought to have heard the buzz of the engine. Instead she saw shards of brown and green and blue. Heard nothing. She closed her eyes, opened them again. Tried to make some sense of things. They weren’t falling, she was sure. Had the flier landed, and she hadn’t noticed?

  A high, quavering voice said something, syllables that made no sense to Ashiban. “We have to get out of here,” said a calm, muffled voice somewhere at Ashiban’s feet. “Speaker is in some distress.” Damn. She’d forgotten to turn off the translating function on her handheld. Maybe the Sovereign’s interpreter hadn’t heard it. She turned her head to look across the flier’s narrow aisle, wincing at the headache.

  The Sovereign’s interpreter lay in the aisle, his head jammed up against the back of the pilot’s seat at an odd, awkward angle. The high voice spoke again, and in the small bag at Ashiban’s feet her handheld said, “Disregard the dead. We have to get out of here or we will also die. The speaker is in some distress.”

  In her own seat, the pink- and orange- and blue-veiled Sovereign fumbled at the safety restraints. The straps parted with a click, and the Sovereign stood. Stepped into the aisle, hiking her long blue skirt. Spoke – it must have been the Sovereign speaking all along. “Stupid cow,” said Ashiban’s handheld, in her bag. “Speaker’s distress has increased.”

  The flier lurched. The Sovereign cried out. “No translation available,” remarked Ashiban’s handheld, as the Sovereign reached forward to tug at Ashiban’s own safety restraints and, once those had come undone, grab Ashiban’s arm and pull.

  The flier had crashed. The flier had crashed, and the Sovereign’s interpreter must have gotten out of his seat for some reason, at just the wrong time. Ashiban herself must have hit her head. That would explain the memory gap, and the headache. She blinked again, and the colored shards where the window should have been resolved into cracked glass, and behind it sky, and flat ground covered in brown and green plants, here and there some white or pink. “We should stay here and wait for help,” Ashiban said. In her bag, her handheld said something incomprehensible.

  The Sovereign pulled harder on Ashiban’s arm. “You stupid expletive cow,” said the handheld, as the Sovereign picked Ashiban’s bag up from her feet. “Someone shot us down, and we crashed in the expletive High Mires. The expletive expletive is expletive sinking into the expletive bog. If we stay here we’ll drown. The speaker is highly agitated.” The flier lurched again.

  It all seemed so unreal. Concussion, Ashiban thought. I have a concussion, and I’m not thinking straight. She took her bag from the Sovereign, rose, and followed the Sovereign of Iss to the emergency exit.

  OUTSIDE THE FLIER, everything was a brown and green plain, blue sky above. The ground swelled and rolled under Ashiban’s feet, but given the flier behind her, half-sunk into the gray-brown ground, and the pain in her head, she wasn’t sure if it was really doing that or if it was a symptom of concussion.

  The Sovereign said something. The handheld in Ashiban’s bag spoke, but it was lost in the open space and the breeze and Ashiban’s inability to concentrate.

  The Sovereign yanked Ashiban’s bag from her, pulled it open. Dug out the handheld. “Expletive,” said the handheld. “Expletive expletive. We are standing on water. The speaker is agitated.”

  “What?” The flier behind them, sliding slowly into the mire, made a gurgling sound. The ground was still unsteady under Ashiban’s feet, she still wasn’t sure why.

  “Water! The speaker is emphatic.” The Sovereign gestured toward the greenish-brown mat of moss beneath them.

  “Help will come,” Ashiban said. “We should stay here.”

  “They shot us down,” said the handheld. “The speaker is agitated and emphatic.”

  “What?”

  “They shot us down. I saw the pilot shot through the window, I saw them die. Timran was trying to take control of the flier when we crashed. Whoever comes, they are not coming to help us. We have to get to solid ground. We have to hide. The speaker is emphatic. The speaker is in some distress. The speaker is agitated.” The Sovereign took Ashiban’s arm and pulled her forward.

  “Hide?” There was nowhere to hide. And the ground swelled and sank, like waves on the top of water. She fell to her hands and knees, nauseated.

  “Translation unavailable,” said the handheld, as the Sovereign dropped down beside her. “Crawl then, but come with me or be dead. The speaker is emphatic. The speaker is in some distress.” The Sovereign crawled away, the ground still heaving.

  “That’s my bag,” said Ashiban. “That’s my handheld.” The Sovereign continued to crawl away. “There’s nowhere to hide!” But if she stayed where she was, on her hands and knees on the unsteady ground, she would be all alone here, and all her things gone and her head hurting and her stomach sick and nothing making sense. She crawled after the Sovereign.

  By the time the ground stopped roiling, the squishy wet moss had changed to stiff, spiky-leaved meter-high plants that scratched Ashiban’s face and tore at her sodden clothes. “Come here,” said her handheld, somewhere up ahead. “Quickly. Come here. The speaker is agitated.” Ashiban just wanted to lie down where she was, close her eyes, and go to sleep. But the Sovereign had her bag. There was a bottle of water in her bag. She kept going.

  Found the Sovereign prone, veilless, pulling off her bright-colored skirts to ball them up beneath herself. Underneath her clothes she wore a plain brown shirt and leggings, like any regular Gidanta. “Ancestors!” panted Ashiban, still on hands and knees, not sure where there was room to lie down. “You’re just a kid! You’re younger than my grandchildren!”

  In answer the Sovereign took hold of the collar of Ashiban’s jacket and yanked her down to the ground. Ashiban cried out, and heard her handheld say something incomprehensible, presumably the Gidantan equivalent of No translation available. Pain darkened her vision, and her ears roared. Or was that the flier the Sovereign had said she’d heard?

  The Sovereign spoke. “Stupid expletive expletive expletive, lie still,” said Ashiban’s handheld calmly. “Speaker is in some distress.”

  Ashiban closed her eyes. Her head hurt, and her twig-scratched face stung, but she was very, very tired.

  A CALM VOICE was saying, “Wake up, Ashiban Xidyla. The speaker is distressed.” Over and over again. She opened her eyes. The absurdly young Sovereign of Iss lay in front of her, brown cheek pressed against the gray ground, staring at Ashiban, twigs and spiny leaves caught in the few trailing braids that had come loose from the hair coiled at the top of her head. Her eyes were red and puffy, as though she had been crying, though her expression gave no sign of it. She clutched Ashiban’s handheld in one hand. Nineteen at most, Ashiban thought. Probably younger. “Are you awake, Ashiban Xidyla? The speaker is distressed.”

  “My head doesn’t hurt,” Ashiban observed. Despite that, everything still seemed slippery and unreal.

  “I took the emergency medical kit on our way off the flier,” the handheld said, translating the Sovereign’s reply. “I put a corrective on your forehead. It’s not the right kind, though. The instructions say to take you to a doctor right away. The speaker is...”

  “Translation preferences,” interrupted Ashiban. “Turn off emotional evaluation.” The handheld fell silent. “Have you called for help, Sovereign? Is help coming?”

  “You are very stupid,” said Ashiban’s handheld. Said the Sovereign of Iss. “Or the concussion is dangerously severe. Our flier was shot down. Twenty minutes after that a flier goes back and forth over us as though it is looking for somet
hing, but we are in the High Mires, no one lives here. If we call for help, who is nearest? The people who shot us down.”

  “Who would shoot us down?”

  “Someone who wants war between Gidanta and Raksamat. Someone with a grudge against your mother, the sainted Ciwril Xidyla. Someone with a grudge against my grandmother, the previous Sovereign.”

  “Not likely anyone Raksamat then,” said Ashiban, and immediately regretted it. She was here to foster goodwill between her people and the Sovereign’s, because the Gidanta had trusted her mother, Ciwril Xidyla, and so they might listen to her daughter. “There are far more of you down here than Raksamat settlers. If it came to a war, the Raksamat here would be slaughtered. I don’t think any of us wants that.”

  “We will argue in the future,” said the Sovereign. “So long as whoever it is does not manage to kill us. I have been thinking. They did not see us, under the plants, but maybe they will come back and look for us with infrared. They may come back soon. We have to reach the trees north of here.”

  “I can use my handheld to just contact my own people,” said Ashiban. “Just them. I trust them.”

  “Do you?” asked the Sovereign. “But maybe the deaths of some Raksamat settlers will be the excuse they need to bring a war that kills all the Gidanta so they can have the world for themselves. Maybe your death would be convenient for them.”

  “That’s ridiculous!” exclaimed Ashiban. She pushed herself to sitting, not too quickly, wary of the pain in her head returning, of her lingering dizziness. “I’m talking about my friends.”

  “Your friends are far away,” said the Sovereign. “They would call on others to come find us. Do you trust those others?” The girl seemed deadly serious. She sat up. “I don’t.” She tucked Ashiban’s handheld into her waistband, picked up her bundle of skirts and veils.

  “That’s my handheld! I need it!”

  “You’ll only call our deaths down with it,” said the Sovereign. “Die if you want to.” She rose, and trudged away through the stiff, spiky vegetation.